Curly Monkey

Thinking about Earth Day coming up on April 22nd and different ways my family could go green, I immediately thought of all the obvious (but still good!) things--reusable grocery bags, "unpaper" towels, rain barrels, reusable snack bags, cloth diapers and family cloth.  But when I stumbled upon Curly Monkey on etsy, I was introduced to something I simply hadn't thought of-reusable makeup removing rounds.  And I don't know why I had never thought of it!  I use at least 2-3 cotton balls every night to remove my mascara/eye makeup, and they obviously just go right into the garbage can.  Why had I never thought of using something reusable to do this?  Not sure, but I'm glad Emmanuelle at Curly Monkey did!

Curly Monkey is owned by Emmanuelle, mama of three beautiful children.  Curly Monkey began back in 2007, mostly with eco-friendly clothing.  Then in 2009, baby #2 came into the world, and they discovered the wonders of hemp!  They began making baby wipes.  And then in 2009, when baby #3 came along, Curly Monkey got a new look, and really found their passion.  Emmanuelle uses hemp in almost all her products.  Hemp is one of the most earth-friendly products, requiring little water, and no pesticides or fertilizer to grow!  Curly Monkey makes a variety of products, including baby wipes, makeup-removing rounds, receiving blankets, and nursing pads.  And they're all absolutely gorgeous!

Emmanuelle sent me a 12 pack of her rainbow reusable rounds.  First of all, they come packaged absolutely adorably!

The rounds themselves are just gorgeous.  They come in six different colors-two of each.  

rainbow of colors

The rounds are made up of 55% hemp and 45% organic cotton.  They're so soft, and get even softer after you wash them.  They're a good size-I didn't measure them, but the website says they're 4".  Here's the size of one compared to my hand.

Mine shrunk slightly after I washed them, but probably only by a quarter of an inch.

I started using them as soon as I got them, and I must say, I absolutely love them!  First of all, they're so pretty!  They just add a little color to my nighttime routine :)  And they're so, so soft on my eyes!  As I said before, I use them to remove my mascara in the evenings.  I use coconut oil (which I love!) to remove my waterproof mascara, so there isn't a lot of rubbing, but I feel like our eyes are so sensitive.  It's nice to have something extra soft to gently remove my makeup from such a sensitive area of my face.  I also feel like this absorbs everything better (which would make sense, since they're made out of hemp).  Before, I would use 2-3 cotton balls to remove the makeup, and now I only need to use one of these rounds for both eyes.  And I feel so good knowing I don't need to buy cotton balls anymore!  Obviously, it's not a huge deal to throw away a few cotton balls every night, but every little bit counts!

Now, the only downfall to these is that because they're removing makeup (and in my case, waterproof makeup), they do get stained.  I expected this when I got them.  I knew a combination of coconut oil, which stains, and waterproof makeup, which really stains would probably leave their mark on these rounds.  And it has.  But it honestly doesn't bother me.  I know they're clean, even if they're stained, and it doesn't affect how they work at all.  I'm also thinking that if I spent a little time either prepping them with some sort of stain remover, or doing some research on how to better clean oil and/or waterproof makeup from fabric, I could reduce the staining, but quite honestly, I'm just too lazy to do that :)  The staining was just a given and doesn't bother me at all.  But if this is something that would bother you, it's something to consider.  Or you just may want to do a little research on how to reduce the staining.  If you do, let me know :)

Overall, I absolutely love these rounds!  I don't think I'll ever go back to using cotton balls on my eyes. Be sure to check out Curly Monkey at their etsy shop, as well as their facebook page!  You won't be disappointed!!  Curly Monkey is offering a discount of 10% on the entire shop for the next week, with discount code EARTH10.